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Friday, 20 November 2015

The Current Cinema - Adrienne McKibbins reports on Vedalam and on Tamil Cinema

Some Background
on Tamil Cinema

Although in the West we tend to hear and see more of Hindi
cinema (aka Bollywood), Tamil cinema (originating from Chennai, formally
Madras) has an industry as big as the cinema that comes out of Mumbai. Its
output this year is likely to be over 220 films.

Tamil cinema, like Hindi cinema, has a long history. The first
film studio was established in Madras in 1916. Keechaka Vadham (1918) was the first silent film made in South India.
Kalidas was the first Tamiltalkie film
made in 1931. The industry has progressed over the years, and at times has
produced more films than any other industry in India.

The Chennai film industry produced the
first nationally distributed film across India in 1948 with Chandralekha. Tamil cinema has one
of the widest overseas distribution networks for Indian cinema, although
Australia has not been part of it in the past.

There is crossover and interaction between the Hindi and Tamil
cinemas, many hit Tamil films are remade in Hindi, from time to time Tamil
actors and even more actresses move between the two industries. Many
technicians especially cameramen work in both industries. Probably the most
famous Tamil director and one of India's greatest directors Mani Ratnam has worked
in both industries, and Tamil musician A R Rahman, who started his career with
Ratnam, and is now on the world stage, composes for both Hindi and Tamil
cinema.

Tamil films are widely distributed outside India, in South
Africa, Singapore and parts of South East Asia, but until very recently the only
Tamil (& Telegu) films screened in Australia were 4 walled by sections of
the Indian community. (Prints were usually unsubtitled) While we still
don't get as many Tamil films as Hindi releases, this seems to be changing,
with a selection of films being screened nationally. This year we have seen at
least half a dozen get release, some doing extremely well. But like most Hindi
cinema they arrive with no pre-publicity or advertising. Of course, the Indian
audience will know.

Like Hindi cinema, Tamil cinema is a predominantly star based
cinema, perhaps to an even greater degree. Tamil stars have in the past formed
their own political parties on the basis of their fan followings

Fortunately subtitled quality DVDs are now more accessible for
Tamil cinema and, like Hindi cinema, pirated DVDs become available very quickly
once a film is released.

Tamil cinema is not unlike Hindi cinema in many ways, star
driven with elaborate musical numbers, films made as a mass entertainment.
Tamil cinema also makes a lot of gritty police/crime sagas that can have a
level of violence stronger than that seen in other areas of Indian cinema.

Since globalisation became a fashionable word we have seen an
enormous number of books published on Hindi cinema...usually with Global in the
title-- although many of these books tend to focus on a limited number of
famous Hindi films, the fact is that now there is considerable information
Hindi cinema. So we have an access to its history and how the industry works.

There have been fewer books in English on Tamil cinema, but this
is also changing. Hopefully with more Tamil films being released and included
in Indian Film Festivals audiences will be able to get greater insight to this
prolific cinema.

Vedalam

The current Tamil release Vedalam (Phantom) stars
Arjith Kumar, so famous he is usually just referred to as Arjith. It also stars
Shruti Hassan (daughter of another famous actor/director/producer Kamal
Hassan). This film like Prem
Ratan Dhan Payo is the big
Diwali release for Tamil cinema.

Critically the film has been generally well received and in
India it's certainly a blockbuster. Although a formulaic film it uses the
formula well, Arjith is a star who can be a one man show, he has a very strong
presence, but is also a very versatile actor.

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This is a blog devoted to things of interest to cinephiles. The subjects are randomly selected in the manner of a diary and are somewhat oriented to Sydney, Australia. In the past I used to send out these entries via regular emails but this has trailed off and its best to check here for anything new.You can contact me direct via email at filmalert101@gmail.com